Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Intolerance debate

Intolerance (n.) –
unwillingness to accept views, beliefs or behavior that differ from
one’s own

Over the past few weeks,
a debate about rising “intolerance” has been raging in India.
Several writers have returned awards citing “rising intolerance in India”.
Talking to India Today TV, film actor Shah Rukh Khan has reportedly
said, “There is intolerance, there is extreme intolerance… there
is, I think…, there is growing intolerance”. More recently, actor Aamir Khan said that alarmed by recent events, his
wife Kiran Rao has suggested that they should leave India.

I find this whole issue
utterly ridiculous.

Intolerance is a
subjective term; it means different things to different people. Also,
opinions always differ from person to person, and there is nothing
wrong in different people having divergent opinions. Beyond a point
therefore, the current debate on whether there is growing intolerance
in the country or not is futile, it is never ending. Nobody claims
that each and every one of 121 crore Indians are tolerant. Nor are
all of them intolerant.

The slant in the current
debate is that intolerance has increased after the new government
came to power in May 2014. For example, Aamir Khan has reportedly
said that “…the sense of insecurity and fear has been growing
in the past six or eight months”. Coming from Aamir Khan, the
statement is all the more surprising, since his film “PK” was
considered to be hurtful to the religious sentiment of Hindus and was
demanded to be banned by certain right wing organizations. However,
the film was not only allowed to be released, but became one of the
highest grossing Indian films of all times.

The so-called
“intolerance”, was nowhere on display, neither on the part of the
government, nor on the part of majority of the viewers.

No intolerance on display - PK was a big hit

How we decide

On any such issue, a
rational person should base his opinions & judgments on two
primary sources:

Official data

Personal experience.

Sources such as
newspapers, television are secondary sources and should never be made
the primary basis of our opinion and judgment. They can best be used
for confirmatory signals when they support what data and personal
experience indicates. Secondary sources should be taken with a pinch
of salt when they contradict data and personal experience. Further,
even while using these secondary sources, care should be taken to
differentiate facts from opinions.

Let us say, the TV anchor
reports something like this:

“A person was killed
because he was selling beef. There is growing intolerance in the
country.”

In this,

A person was
killed is a fact.

Because he was
selling beef is the suspected motive. It may be proved or
disproved after a full investigation is over.

There is growing
intolerance in the country is a generalization which will need
supporting data with a much larger sample size.

When we listen to such
news, and form our opinions and judgments based on them, we must be
conscious of what we are relying on. When I listen to the above news,
I would give 100% weightage to point no. 1 above, 50% weightage to
point no. 2 and zero weightage to point no. 3.

Where is the data?

The Home Ministry website
has lot of statistics on the country’s crime. None of those who
allege intolerance have provided any data to support their thesis.
Note that even when data is present, it needs to be analyzed
carefully, as raw numbers may prove existence of fact, but not
causation. I have often seen that from the same set of numbers, different
people draw different inferences. For example, economists differ on
whether the economy is doing well, or poorly, though both sides refer
to the same sets of data.

In the present debate,
there is no data or survey which indicate how many attacks have been
caused by this alleged “intolerance” and whether there is any
substantial increase in them after the change of government at the
Centre. Besides, let us also not forget that under the
constitution, law and order is a state subject. We cannot blame Modi
for riots in Gujarat while using a different yardstick for law and
order problems in Assam, U.P. or West Bengal or elsewhere. The
intolerance argument fails miserably against the “data” test.

Personal experience

My personal experience
and observation does not corroborate the intolerance allegation. To
the extent I see around myself at home, in office or in my
neighborhood, behavior of the people, inter-personal and social
relationships and attitudes towards others including towards people belonging to other religions are the same today as they were before
May 2014. If your experience is any different, you are entitled to hold a different opinion. But to me, the intolerance argument makes no sense.